Decorative floor and wall covering and process for making same



Dec. 12, 1961 N. s. MARCUS ET AL 3,012,235

DECORATIVE FLOOR AND WALL COVERING AND PROCESS FOR MAKING SAME Filed Feb. 25, 1960 FIG.3

INVENTORS NATALIE S. MARCUS ERNEST R. HOLMSTROM MERRILL M. SMITH BY hzuy'safllzmz :zuuaamazasm ATTORNEYS United States Patent 3,012,285 DECORATIVE FLOOR AND WALL COVERING AND PROCESS FOR MAKING SAME Natalie S. Marcus, Trenton, N.J., and Ernest R. Holmstrom and Merrill M. Smith, Morrisville, Pa., assignors to American Biltrite Rubber Co., Inc., Chelsea, Mass,

a corporation of Delaware Filed Feb. 25, 1960, Ser. No. 11,663 1 Claim. (Cl. 1848.8)

This invention relates to floor and wall coverings and more particularly comprises a novel process for producing an elastomeric floor and Wall covering having the coloring and configuration of variegated, and vesiculated marble.

Because of their natural beauty, various types of marle have served as models in the commercial development of door and wall covering material. The reproduction of characteristic marble colors with all their mottled and variegated effects have been worked out by the skillful blending of elastomeric components having different degrees of hardness and of varying refleotivities. The art has developed to such an extent that there is now commercially available floor and wall coverings which strongly resemble various types of marble both as to color and surface texture.

There is one type of marble, however, which heretofore has been impossible to duplicate because of its unusual coloring and surface configuration. This marble, popularly known as Travertine, normally is a delicate old ivory in base color and is characterized by a surface which is formed with rough and irregular cavities of varying depth and size. These cavities appear at random and normally become encrusted with impurities such as iron oxide causing themto stand out in high contrast against the light surface coloration.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a floor and-wall covering characterized by a vesiculated surface and colored to resemble polished marble of the Travertine type.

Another object of this invention is to provide a novel process for producing an elastomeric floor and wall covering material having irregular cavities of varying size and depth formed at random across an exposed surface.

Yet another object of this invention is to provide a process for producing such a floor and wall covering material that substantially resembles the surface of polished .Travertine marble.

More particularly, the invention features an elastomeric material in sheet form having one surface thereof provided with irregular shallow cavities of random distribution. The cavitated areas are coated with a substance that contrasts with the base color of the material whereby the cavities stand out in sharp relief in the same manner as the encrusted cavities of natural Travertine marble.

The process for making floor and wall covering of this type begins with the forming of a mold taken from the polished surface of natural Travertine marble. Elastomeric materials of the desired color are mixed at an elevated temperature and calendered so as to produce a sheet of constant thickness. The sheet is then passed through a molding operation in which the reversed Travertine marble image on the mold is transferred to the surface of the sheet material. Coloring is then added to the cavity areas to contrast them with the background surface.

These and other novel features of the invention together with further objects and advantages thereof will become apparent from the following detailed specification with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a top-plan view of a piece of floor covering material made according to the invention,

3,012,285 Patented Dec. 12, 1961 FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line 22 of FIG. 1,

FIG. 3 is a sectional view in side elevation showing the mold and the unembossed flooring material in opposite relation,

FIG. 4 is a view in perspective showing the molded sheet and a wiping brush or blade in the process of removing excess coloring material, and

FIG. 5 is a fragmentary cross-sectional view of a finished sheet of floor material.

Referring now to the drawings, the reference character 1% generally indicates a sheet or tile of the type used in covering floors, walls and the like, and is shown as having a number of irregular shallow cavities 12 formed in its overall surface. The cavities appear at random and vary in size, shape and depth. Preferably, the base color of the material should be a pale ivory, somewhat striated, with the cavity areas darkened to stand out in sharp contrast. The finished sheet, preferably made from an elastorneric material such as commonly used in floor coverings, closely resembles polished Travertine marble in coloring and surface configuration.

Although the fioor or wall covering described herein may be produced from a number of suitable materials, it has been found that vinyl plastic material produces particularly good results. Vinyl floor coverings, in sheet or tile form, are easy to install and stand up extremely well under very hard wear. The material is somewhat resilient yet possesses a tough smooth surface that is easily cleaned and takes a high polish. I

In the production of floor and wall covering having the appearance of Travertine marble, the irst step involves the manufacture of suitable molding equipment which must exactly reproduce the Travertine surface. Such molds may be of the usual fiat form adapted for use in the standard intermittently operated flat type of molding press or may be cylindrical in shape and so adapted to use in the standard continuous rotary vulcanizer such as described in US. Patent No. 2,591,995. The mold, whether designed for use in the rotary or fiat molding process, may be produced by a variety of methods known to mold makers, but a preferred method and one which is particularly adaptable to flat molding is carried out by first selecting a block of natural Travertine marble having a suitably fiat polished surface. Carefully applied to this surface is a metalizing powder or liquid capable of rendering every portion of the surface conductive. Great care is taken to coat each surface cavity so that the finished mold will faithfully reproduce all of the surface irregularities. The coated marble is then electroplated first with a suitable mold surfacing material such as nickel or the like and then strengthened with an additional layer of metal such as a layer of copper.

The copper should be applied to a sufiicient thickness so as to allow the mold to be stripped from the marble surface Without injury. Once removed the relatively thin mold shell is built up to a substantial thickness so as to serve as a mold plate 14 in a molding press. The reinforcement may be accomplished by any one of a number of known methods such as casting a thick layer of suitable alloy on the back side of the mold shell to form a smooth backing sheet of metal integral with the mold. Finally, side members may be fitted to the mold plate to retain the elastomeric material during the subsequent molding process. In the event that the rotary continuous press is used in molding the Travertine, it may be desirable, prior to molding, to pass the sheet through the rotary press to heat the sheet to an elevated temperature of from 300 to 360 F. The molding would not occur during this operation but wou d take place subsequently when the sheet, immediately upon leaving the press, is passed through a pair of opposed rolls, one of which 'quently exposed to heat.

color to the mixture.

3 embossed with the desired T ravertine molding contours. The elastomeric material which is molded to form the molded sheet material 10 may be prepared in the follow ingmanner.

A Banbury mixing machine is filled with a pre-mixed slurry or granular mixture of vinyl chloride or other suitable vinyl resins which have been combined with a suitable plasticizer in an amount suflicient to produce the desired floor hardness when the mixture is subse- It is usual to add to this Banbury mixture small amounts of chemicals which act as stabilizers and lubricants as well as coloring ingredients in the form of pigments of dyes which yield the desired The Banbury mixes the ingredients at a'moderately elevated temperature and delivers it to a batch-01f mill from which it is later fed to 21 cal ender. The calender produces a sheet of vinyl or other elastomeric matrix of constant thickness which can be cut to the desired dimensions for molding.

In order to produce the rather muted variegated appearance of the natural Travel-tine marble, two or more matrix batches of similar color but of different values should be prepared. By way of example the first batch may be composed of the following ingredients.

Banbury mix #1 Polyvinyl chloride 100.00 Phthalate plasticizer 50.00 Barium-Cadmium stabilizer 2.00 Calcium carbonate 200.00

Titanium dioxide 10.00 Yellow iron oxide .09 Total 362.09

Banbury mix #2 Same as #1 except use .05 of yellow iron oxide.

The sheet stock maybe made in several colors but the matrix should always be in two slightly contrasting shades. The above formulations are typical for reproducing the ivory tones of Travertine marble. As an alternative procedure, different sheets of varying color value may be fed into the calender and so produce the mottled effect in the calendered sheet.

In either event, the suitably mottled sheet is next cut to a size to fit the mold 14 and can then be molded at 'a suitable temperature (350-400 F.) in a fiat press for a period suflicient to force the elevated areas on the mold into the matrix. The press is then cooled with cooling water, the moldopened and the embossed sheet removed.

When the molding operation is completed, the next stop is to darken the cavity areas 12 so as to resemble the encrusted cavities of the natural Travertine marble. This is accomplished by coating the surface of the sheet with a coloring material 16 such as black iron oxide tinted with titanium oxide and simply suspended in an oil vehicle to form a thin paint. A brush or blade 18 then wipes off the excess coloring material 16 as shown in FIG. 4, leaving the cavity areas lined with the dark paint. As a final step, the back of the sheet 10 may be roughened by sanding and the sheet cut to its final dimensions.

Having thus described our invention, what we claim and desire to obtain by Letters Patent'of United States is:

The process of making an elastomeric covering of Travertinedesign for floors, walls and the like, comprising the steps of mixing a plurality of moldable vinyl elastomers of different shades of the same base color, calendering the mixture to form a solid mottled sheet of the selected colors, heating the calendered elastorner'ic sheet to molding temperature of 300-360 R, molding the overall surface area of the sheet by applying to it a mold of true Travertine contour having a plurality of scattered low protuberances of irregular outline and of varying size, depth, configuration and distribution, removing the mold from the molded sheet, coating the molded surface of the elastomeric sheet with a paint of a color contrasting with the base color and then removing the colored paint immediately to expose plane surface areas of the molded elastomeric sheet while leaving the depressed areas of the cavities thereof permanently coated with the contrasting colored .paint.

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